


The Lioness Lies Dead

by Inkstained_Dreamer



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: A little fluff but it's sad at its core, Childhood, Degenerative Diseases, Dol Amroth, Family, Gen, Gondor, Good moms and not so good dads, Grief/Mourning, Minas Tirith, Parent Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Poor Boromir, Sad, poor Faramir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 17:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkstained_Dreamer/pseuds/Inkstained_Dreamer
Summary: Finduilas of Dol Amroth is lots of things--a valiant soldier. The wife of Denethor II. Boromir and Faramir's mother.And now she's dying.
Relationships: Boromir (Son of Denethor II) & Denethor II, Boromir (Son of Denethor II) & Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Boromir (son of Denethor II) & Finduilas of Dol Amroth, Denethor II/Finduilas of Dol Amroth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	The Lioness Lies Dead

Many years later, Boromir would thank the Gods that his father hadn’t been the one to tell him that his mother wasn’t going to get better. It wasn’t that Papa was cruel, because he was not, nor was it that he was cold, because he was not that either, or at least, he hadn’t been at the time. But above all things, Papa was. . .well, he was ambitious, he always had been, and the ambitious can’t afford to spend much time explaining to a child of seven that in a few months, his entire life will be upended and set down again at a completely different angle and missing a piece. 

But he knew the gratitude was a selfish one. He had been a child then, and he hadn’t been able to understand, but he was a man now, and he could imagine having little ones of his own. What would it be like to explain to one’s child that you are dying from a cureless disease? To tell someone you’d brought into the world that they must see you out of it? He had paid enough calls to soldiers’ families, dressed in mourning white; had seen enough children cry and enough spouses cover their mouths to hold in sobs, to know that, if ever the occasion came, he wouldn’t be as strong as his mother had been.

Boromir loved life with a ferocity and enthusiasm suited to his leonine nature. He would not let it go easily. He would clutch at it and protest as the relentless hand of Death dragged him away. He knew this. His mother had been calm in the last months of her life, a pillar of serenity in the midst of her husband’s desperation, even as her body failed her and pain became a constant. It must have been terrible, Boromir thought. He remembered those times--Papa up all night with the doctors, the journeys south to the sea and north to the mountains, the white anemones sent by family that Papa tore to shreds and threw out the window. 

“ _ Denethor _ ,” Finduilas had said gently, and Boromir remembered how Papa fell to his knees on the floor and buried his head in his wife’s blankets and sobbed. He remembered how her thin, veined hands had stroked Papa’s dark hair, the bones stark in a way they never had been before. 

After that, Boromir had climbed up on the bed and snuggled himself next to his mother’s side. She’d patted his cheek with one cold hand. 

“Sunbeam?” Mama had asked in her low, sweet voice. “You have something on your mind?”

“Why did Papa hate the flowers from Auntie?” Boromir inquired.

Finduilas hummed to herself for a moment, the vibration traveling through her chest and into Boromir’s body, a calming thrum. 

“My darling,” she started. “I’m going to tell you something. I am very, very sick.”

Boromir lifted his eyes and shifted himself onto his mother’s lap. “Yeah. That’s why all the doctors are here.”

Finduilas nodded and brushed a few curls off his forehead. “That’s right, sunbeam.” She sighed and smiled down at him, her eyes crinkling. He didn’t know why they were so shiny. “Boromir. My light. I am not going to get better, whatever the doctors do.”

Boromir furrowed his brows, thick like his father’s. “So you won’t wear your armor anymore? Or spar with Papa?”

“No, Bo. I can’t do those things.”

“You won’t help me feed the raptors?”

She laughed and swiftly kissed his nose. “I will, for a little longer. And then you’ll have to teach Faramir. That’ll be fun, won’t it? An adventure! You can show him how to do everything the right way.”

“But I like to do it with  _ you _ , Mama!” he’d whined discontentedly.

She rested her fingertips on his cheek. “Bo, my little sunbeam, light of my life, my bright boy, if I could stay here with you, and your brother, and Papa, and everyone else, I would do it in a second. But I can’t. Boromir,” she said, and he straightened. She almost never used his full name. “I am going to die.”

He stared at her, dark eyes uncomprehending. She swallowed, and he saw the bulb of her throat bob up and down.

“Do you understand that, my darling?” she asked softly, stroking his face. 

Looking back, he probably didn’t. Death felt so far away in that clean, sunlight room, with the spring breeze bearing the scent of flowers in through the open window and Faramir’s kitten, Mishi, playing on the rug. His mother had her arms around him, she was warm and breathing and alive. How could she die? People called her the Lioness of Dol Amroth, and Boromir knew from his colorful picture books that lions are the hunters, not the prey. Lions do not die. It is simply not the way of things. 

But she was still looking at him with her bright, intense gaze, and it was obviously important to her that he understood, so he nodded, to make her happy.

The corner of her mouth lifted in a sad sort of smile. “So you see, sunbeam, that’s why Papa is sad. He is climbing a mountain too tall for him, as always,” she added in a murmur, her eyes far away.

Boromir hadn’t seen any mountains, but he nodded again. Finduilas laughed, evidently at his look of confusion, and rumpled his hair. 

“I have something important for you, Bo,” she said brightly, reaching over to open the drawer of the table beside her bed.

“What is it?” Boromir said eagerly, bouncing up. Mama always had a good store of sweets for her sons (and for herself, she admitted). Honeyed nuts from the kitchens, maple candy brought from a trip to the mountains, and Boromir’s favorite--dried mango from Dol Amroth. His mouth watered, the sadness in his mother’s eyes momentarily forgotten.

But what she pulled from the drawer wasn’t candy, but two stacks of folded parchment, tied with ribbons. She set them on the blankets between them.

“This one,” she said, tapping one pile, “is for you. The other one, here, is for your brother. Can I trust you to keep them both safe?”

“Uh-huh!” Boromir bent over them, inquisitively peering down at his mother’s neat hand on the fronts. “What are they? Can I see them?”

Finduilas grinned mischievously. “No! Not right now. These are very, very special, my sweet. And what’s in them is a surprise!”

Boromir stuck out his lower lip. “Why?”

“Because, sunbeam, they’re letters for you. There are one hundred of them in all. Can you tell me how many that gives you?”

Boromir rolled his eyes. Mama always snuck math in. But then he remembered Papa’s tears, and the strange notion she had about the future. If this would make her happy, then he’d do it.

“Fifty,” he said grudgingly. “Fifty for me and fifty for ‘Mir.”

“Good job!” his mother praised. “Yes. There are fifty letters for you, but--” she held up a finger “--you’re not to open them right away. They’re for your birthdays. Each year, for fifty years, until you’re as old as Amah and Babou, you’ll have one. And so will your brother, when he’s old enough to read.”

Boromir tilted his head and rocked back and forth in confusion. “Who sent them, Mama?”

She smiled again, that sad smile he’d never seen before. “I did. And when you’re older, whenever you miss me, whenever you feel alone, you can open them up and look through them, and it’ll be just like we’re talking again.”

“You’re not going to die, Mama,” Boromir said sagely, patting her thin hand. “I would  _ know _ . And anyways, Papa’ll make you better.”

She dipped her head for a moment and took a breath. When she raised it again, the corners of her eyes were damp. 

“No, Boromir,” she said firmly, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t want to cause you pain, sunbeam, but I  _ am _ dying, no matter what Papa or anyone else does. All I want now is to fill this time with as much love as I can. Sometimes, Bo, that’s all we can do. We’ve got to love each other and let each other go.”

“But I don’t want to let you go!” he yelled, angry suddenly. At Mama, for saying these untrue things. At Papa for not finding a cure already. At the aunt who’d sent the grief-flowers. At a world that was conspiring to take his mother away from him.

Finduilas gathered him close to her chest, rocking him back and forth. “Shh, bright one. We still have time. We aren’t saying goodbye just yet. Just getting ready. Just getting ready, okay? We’ve got time, baby,” she sang in her smooth, warm voice. “We’ve got t-i-i-ime.”

_ But not all the time in the world _ , Boromir thought.

* * *

She began to decline in earnest when spring turned to summer. Denethor spent all his time by her bed or with the doctors, talking in low voices. He treated Boromir and Faramir with distant courtesy, but didn’t throw them up in the air as he used to do, didn’t sit them on his lap when he was working, didn’t let them hide themselves in the trailing folds of his dress robes and play under the soft velvet. 

They spent their days sitting with their mother on the bed, playing games or listening to her stories, and when the weather was warm, they sat in the garden--Faramir and Boromir on the grass or on a stone bench, and Finduilas in her wheeled chair, wrapped in blankets even beneath the sun. She couldn’t chase them as she;d done before, but she laughed and teased and sang just as she always had; and if her eyes looked a little more sunken and the skin of her face was a little tauter, well, that was just how things were. 

In the four months between the beginning of her true decline and the funeral, Boromir only really spoke to his father once. It was the middle of the night, or perhaps early morning, and Boromir had tiptoed out into the hall, thirsty and bleary-eyed, and had made his stumbling way to the fountain to get a drink. On his way back, water dripping from his lips and hands, he saw that his father’s door was open slightly, golden light shining within. And because he was Boromir and didn’t personally appreciate the maxim featuring a certain dead cat, he peered around the doorframe.

Denethor was hunched over his desk, his back to Boromir. He was in his shirtsleeves, scribbling away at something in front of him. His hair hung loose down his back. The light gleamed on it, and on the shifting of his muscles. Boromir smiled, thinking of how strong his father was. He’d find a cure for Mama; he always found a way to do things. That was how he always had been, and how he always would be--or at least, that’s what Boromir thought as he stood leaning against the polished wood of his father’s study. 

He must’ve made some sound, because Denethor lifted his head and turned his drawn, weary face towards his son. Boromir stared back.

“Hi, Papa,” he finally squeaked, when the silence had remained unbroken for at least a minute.

“Hello, Boromir,” Denethor finally replied. (He almost always called both his children by their full names). “Do you need something?”

Boromir shrugged and played with the tails of his nightshirt. “Got thirsty.”

“You’re almost eight years old, Boromir, I firmly believe in your capability to go to the fountain by yourself now.”

Boromir’s lower lip jutted out. “I  _ did _ ! I’m not a scaredy-cat!”

Denethor sighed wearily and turned fully around on his chair. “Go back to bed then, sweetheart.”

Boromir perked up at the ‘sweetheart’ and gathered the courage to cross the wide expanse of rich carpet separating him from his father. 

“Wrong direction,” Denethor said dryly, looking down into his son’s face. He pointed to the door. “Your room is that-a-way.” 

Boromir crept closer and pressed himself against his father’s leg, leaning his head against his thigh. Denethor rested one elegant hand on his curly head. 

“What, Boromir?” he asked, and Boromir’s heart nearly broke at how tired his voice sounded.

“I just. . .I. . .I wanted to. . .” he stuttered, trailing off into silence when he realized that he had, in fact, not the slightest idea why he had decided to enter the forbidden and hallowed portals of his father’s study.

Denethor sighed again, a long, exhausted sigh, and lifted Boromir onto his lap, settling him in the crook of his arm. Boromir beamed at the unexpected gesture and snuggled himself against his father’s chest, inhaling the scent of clean linen, sage, and cold air. 

“What are you doing, Papa?” he asked, looking at the papers strewn across Denethor’s desk.

“Writing some letters,” Denethor replied. 

“To who?”

“Whom.”

Boromir tilted his head. “Who’s ‘Whom’? It’s a funny name.”

Denethor chuckled. “You should’ve said whom, not who. I don’t know anyone named ‘whom,’ and neither shall you. But it’s all right. The letter is for Mithrandir.”

“Who’s that, Papa?”

Denethor tucked a curl behind Boromir’s ear. “He’s a wizard. He does special things.”

“Can he heal Mama?”

Denethor sighed and picked up his quill again. “I hope so.”

It was the first time Boromir had ever heard his father sound less-than-certain about something. When he woke up the next morning, back in his room, with buttery sunshine on his face and Faramir tugging at the bedclothes, he thought it must’ve been a dream until he noticed the vaguely thumb-shaped smudge of ink on his cheek. 

He grinned and didn’t wipe it away.

* * *

Summer waxed on, hot and sticky, the air filled with the buzz of cicadas and the scent of cooking from the Lower Ring. Boromir, Faramir, and Finduilas took the rattling, jouncing elevator down from their home and bought ornately sliced fruit on sticks, balls of sweet fried dough sprinkled with coconut, lemonade flavored with lavender. Boromir pushed his mother’s chair, and Faramir rode on her lap, pointing at the stalls and squealing at the street performers. Finduilas laughed and talked as merrily as usual, but the stallholders’ eyes were full of pity and sadness. Boromir noticed this, but said nothing. He just bent down and rested his cheek against his mother’s head, feeling the smooth, bare skin beneath his cheek.

In the joyous hubbub of the Lower City, it was easy to forget the tomb-like stillness of their house; the shadows of sleeplessness under Papa’s eyes; how easily Mama tired now. But as summer wore on, the trips grew few and far between. Finduilas was in bed all the time now, her skin sallow and waxy, the skin around her eyes and mouth drawn. She read to Boromir and Faramir and sang to them, played elaborate and fantastical games of pretend and let them try on all her jewelry, even after Faramir tried to swallow a ring. They even slept in the bed with her at night, curled up close, sweaty from the heat but never rolling over. Faramir’s third birthday came and went. They ate cake with Mama and spilled crumbs all over the bed. Mishi, grown large and silky, licked frosting off Faramir’s hands and face. It made Finduilas laugh, but Boromir stayed silent, clutching her hand. She touched his cheek and in her eyes he saw sorrow, a deep, impenetrable well of sadness that was hidden again in a moment.

When he thought back to it, years later, he wished he’d told her then that he loved her. He wanted to scream at his younger self,  _ do it! Tell her now! Tell her you admire her, tell her you love her, tell her you’ll miss her! Tell her, you fool! _

Even so, he could not change the memory, and could not change what came after. Not even the gods had the power to change the past. But it was still tempting to dream of it, even if it felt rather like stabbing oneself in the heart.

* * *

“Prince Boromir,” someone was saying in a quiet voice. “Prince Boromir, wake up.”

“S’it morning?” Boromir groaned. He’d been dreaming something nice.

“No,” said the voice, “Not yet. But you’ve got to wake up, Prince Boromir.”

Boromir opened bleary eyes and stared into the face of a guard he’d seen before but didn’t know well. A lantern lit his face from below with warm yellow light. Boromir pushed back the coverlet and sat up. His hair stuck to his damp forehead. He could hear Faramir’s sleepy snuffles from across the room.

“Why?” Boromir asked the guard, scratching at a mosquito bite. “What. . .what’s wrong?”

The guard looked down, and Boromir could see his mouth working. 

Dread pooled like molten metal in the bottom of his stomach. 

“Why?” he asked again, desperately, but he knew the answer. “Why? Tell me!”

The guard raised reddened eyes to Boromir’s face. “Your mother passed two hours ago,” he said gently. 

Later, he wished that he’d found out the guard’s name. He’d been so kind, when Boromir had sobbed into his shoulder and slobbered on his uniform. He’d carried him to Finduilas’ room, where the bed was shrouded in a white sheet and Denethor stood, silhouetted against the golden light of the lamp, yelling at the doctors, with the horrible voice of a hunted animal. The soldier had rocked Boromir and wiped his tears and told him that everything would be all right. He’d drawn back the coverlet and let Boromir touch his mother’s face--the blue-tinged, slack lips, the closed eyes, the husk of what had been. But in all the confusion, Boromir had never learned who his benefactor had been. He wished he knew. It would be nice to get to thank him. 

But then again, what use would that be? He was a man of thirty-two now, and a commander besides; his father would tell him not to bow his head to an underling. 

(Sometimes, Boromir hated his father.)

* * *

In the days after Finduilas’ death, a swarm of relations from Dol Amroth descended on their home. Amah, with her web of laughter lines and citrus perfume, Babou with his mustache and weathered face, cousins and aunts and uncles with Finduilas’ sparkling eyes, or her dark hair, or her cheekbones. Boromir and Faramir were smothered in kisses and inundated with stories. Faramir didn’t let go of Amah’s hand, staring with wide eyes at the goings-on. Boromir had explained to him, as best he could, what was going on, but he doubted his brother really understood. He was only three, after all, and he’d never seen death. Boromir had. Denethor had taken him hunting once. He’d cried when they’d killed the graceful, long-legged deer. His father had shaken head. 

The funeral procession wound down through the city like a great white snake. Singers chanted mournfully, their wailing song carrying through Lower City and Upper City alike. Boromir walked beside his grandmother, holding her strong, broad hand. Faramir was in Babou’s arms. Denethor walked beside the litter bearing his wife’s body, his head down, his rough white mourning robes dragging in the dust. Boromir hadn’t heard him speak since the night he’d been taken to see his mother’s body. Babou said to give him time. Amah muttered something about duty and selfish grief and then walked out of the room, her scarf drawn over her face. Babou’s shoulders heaved.

Boromir had never quite realized that these were his mother’s parents. That they’d let her sleep in bed with them, and sang to her, and tickled her, and watched her go through all the things that Finduilas had watched Boromir had done himself. It was strange to think of them like that. Boromir almost felt pity. They were so very  _ old _ to him. Their sadness was somehow sadder because it came from such wrinkled vessels. The sun gleamed on Amah’s white and grey braids, and on Babou’s balding head. Boromir had a vague notion that such old people shouldn’t be at their  _ child’s _ funeral, but then again, maybe he shouldn’t be at it either. Everything felt fuzzy and numb but sharp and aching at the same time. He watched as the pallbearers lowered their burden slowly onto a carved stone slab and wondered what it would feel like to die. Was it peaceful? Did all your pain simply flow away? If it was like sleeping, he thought maybe he’d like it. The stone floor of the tomb was cold through the thin soles of his shoes. He watched his father raise ornate shears and hack at his long, silky hair. Pieces of it drifted down onto the white and blue clothes covering Mama. 

A hand landed on Boromir’s shoulder, and he looked up into the face of a man in a grey robe. His skin was dark and wrinkled with age, but his eyes gleamed in his face like twin fires. White hair spilled over his shoulders and his beard hung to his chest. He nodded down at Boromir, sorrow in his bright eyes. Faramir twisted his head over Babou’s shoulder to look at him. Boromir could see that his brother’s eyes were saucer-wide.

The ceremony went on. The priests chanted. Amah and Babou inked their foreheads with the patterns for loss. The aunts and uncles came forward to lay white anemones--like the ones that Papa had shredded--on and around the stone table.

But disaster struck when the time came for Denethor to make the traditional gestures of mourning and to speak of his wife. He stepped forward, and in doing so, raised his eyes to meet those of the man beside Boromir. 

He stopped walking. Rage kindled in his eyes. His face twisted.

“You  _ dare _ ,” he said in a quiet, steely voice. “You  _ dare _ to come to my wife’s funeral? You  _ dare _ show your face within this city, Mithrandir?!”

The man--Mithrandir--nodded slowly. “I do, Lord Denethor.”

“You could have saved her!” Denethor yelled, his voice echoing in the silent tomb. Boromir winced.

Mithrandir closed his eyes. A tear trickled down his wrinkled cheek. “I could have tried, Lord Denethor. It would not have changed things.”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ make excuses to me, you lying bastard!” Denethor snapped. “I know you, and I know what you can do. You could’ve saved her, and even if, as you say, you ‘would’ve failed’, you could’ve  _ at least had the consideration to come here when I sent for you _ . But I suppose you were simply too busy,” he scoffed. “Your little Shirefolk are  _ so _ important to you.”

Mithrandir opened his eyes, and they blazed like tiny suns. His hand was still on Boromir’s shoulder. “Denethor,” he said sternly, a reprimand in his tone, “This scorn demeans you. Where is the noble young man I taught? He would grieve. But he would not behave like this in doing so.”

Denethor reached into a fold of his robe. “Maybe he wouldn’t have. But maybe he died with his wife.” 

With a wordless, agonized scream, Denethor flew at Mithrandir. A curved blade gleamed silver in his hand. One of the aunties screamed.

“Denethor!” bellowed Babou.

“Papa--!” Boromir gasped in horror.

“ _ I want MAMA! _ ” Faramir wailed. 

Three things happened in quick succession: 

Denethor’s trailing hem caught on the uneven stone floor. 

The knife flew out of his hand as he fell.

And pain exploded through Boromir’s mind.

The dagger had slashed a red arc, like a bloody, toothless smile, across his forehead before burying itself in a wooden statue.

* * *

He could’ve died. Even now, after so many battles, it still made his stomach turn. His father had nearly killed him at his mother’s funeral. It was like something that would happen in a particularly gruesome myth--the grief-stricken father, seeking revenge, is tricked by some twisted caprice of fate into killing his own son. But Boromir had not died, so he supposed fate had decided to ease off in his case. He wondered why. It wasn’t as if he was anything special. Anything other than what his father had made him. 

Boromir traced the white scar with his finger and smiled bitterly. Most of the time, when people asked, he told them he’d gotten it in a riding accident. It was plausible enough. He couldn’t lie to Faramir though. He had never lied to Faramir and he never would. 

Which was why he was sitting at his desk and writing a letter. His mother always  _ had _ had good ideas, after all.

* * *

_ Dear Faramir-- _

_ I’m writing this letter to say goodbye. By the time you read this, I’ll already be gone. Don’t come after me. I’ll be fine. Really, Mir. I’m not even nervous, and I’m not just saying that to seem tough. You know I only do that around Papa (I know you won’t laugh, but that was a joke all the same).  _

_ Anyways, I hope you don’t mind that I took your map. You always were better than me at planning, and I don’t trust myself not to lose my way, even if I’m now the proud haver of prophetic dreams (what an honor).  _

_ Take care of yourself while I’m gone. I’d tell you not to do anything I wouldn’t do, but I know that you already have enough sense to leave anything that I’d do well enough alone and I don’t want to burden you with useless guidance. Gods know you’re the cleverer one between us. Mithrandir picked a good student. I’ll send him your love, by the way. And I’ll ask him that question you had about defensive wards. I have a hunch he’ll be in Imladris too. He has a way of mixing himself up in these things. _

_ I’ll see you when I get back. Hopefully it won’t be too long.  _

_ Love,  _

_ Boromir  _

_ P.S. I’ve arranged for you to be deployed to Ithilien. It needs protection. And it’s farther than the reach of our dearest Father’s arm, coincidentally. Funny how the fates arrange these things. . . _

_ P. P. S. Smell the flowers for me! And give Mordor hell. Mama and I are rooting for you!  _

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my first Boromir-focused story. ❤


End file.
